Big Smallville Scoop from Erica Durance: Part 1

The time is now for Smallville to take the Superman mythos to the next level by teaming Clark and Lois at the "Daily Planet." With the CW series' season premiere a week away, TVGuide.com sought to squeeze some "scoop" out of Ms. Lane herself, Erica Durance. Here in Part 1, the actress updates us on her episode count, braces for the critical storyline laid before her and, yes, reveals the last thing I expected to hear her say. - Matt Mitovich

TVGuide.com: First things first: How many episodes do we have you for this season?Erica Durance: All I know is I'm doing more than my 13, but they won't tell me how many yet.

TVGuide.com: Those sneaks. Don't they know you have bills to pay? Shoes to buy?Durance: It is sneaky, right?!

TVGuide.com: Now that we're doing Lois and Clark at the "Daily Planet," do you feel as if, more than ever, all eyes are on you?Durance: I would go crazy if I felt deeply that way. I would go insane! But what I do feel, because we're moving more towards that mythos, is that I have a lot more to do in each episode. I'm more involved, Lois is finding herself more, and she definitely is becoming that journalist that everyone loves. She's brushing shoulders with Clark a lot, so we have a lot of fun interplay. She'll go to investigate something, thinking that she's the one solving the problem, and meanwhile he's speeding around saving her a lot. It's quite funny.

TVGuide.com: Lois has taken some knocks for "sleeping her way" into the job and whatnot....Durance: That's what I hear, yes. But in this season they've given her some great material and great intelligence. You'll see that she definitely didn't sleep her way into the job.

TVGuide.com: Obviously it's a very important turn that the show is taking. Have you and Tom Welling sat down to discuss how you're going to approach it?Durance: The way it works, and it happened when I first came to the show, is you come together with your cast members and the producers and go over the flavor of what's happening with your story. And every year, I'm on the periphery, but I grow a little bit. When this year came around and it became clear where they wanted to take things, yeah, it was discussed. We take it very seriously, to make sure that we're doing it justice and making these characters lovable. The big flag I'm waving all the time is to make sure that Lois is intelligent and fun and lovable so that the audience will like the fact that Clark likes her, instead of going....

TVGuide.com: "She's not worthy! She's not worthy!"Durance: Right. So we're making a special effort this year, even with the small nuances, to be truthful to the Superman mythos.

TVGuide.com: At the "Daily Planet," will we see Lois and Clark more as partners or as rivals?Durance: You get a little bit of both. That's what's been fun about the relationship, these moments where they're going head-to-head and then pull together when they have to, when the stakes are really high. Those moments where one of them goes, "You know what, you did do a good job." And the writers have been really good this year dropping little bombs of, "Oh my god, do they really love each other? Does she really love him?" There's a lot of that.

TVGuide.com: I had the opportunity to break the news about the kiss coming up in Episode 5, "Committed." How would you describe the heat-level of the lip lock?Durance: Oh. Well that never actually happened.

TVGuide.com: No!!!Durance: There's no kiss. I'm sorry to tell you that! In our [final shooting script], that was not part of it. [ In a side conversation, a CW publicist confirms that the kiss did in fact exist in an early draft of "Committed."] But there are some things that actually come out in that script that are really, really lovely. They get into a lot of trouble, and Lois has to admit feelings that she has for Clark, deep down, in front of him. [ Sighs] I know this interview isn't going as planned, but I can tell you that when there is a kiss, it will be hot! [ Laughs]

TVGuide.com: OK.... What about talk that Clark will offer Lois a place to stay at the Kent farm?Durance: Yes. Yes, he does offer her a place to stay, and she's avoiding the issue right now. There's a lot of things that happen in the scenes I'm doing where you definitely see that she is in love with Clark. She's doesn't want him to know, but she does realize her real feelings for him. She just doesn't know what to do with them. And they're going to build on that. But we're only on Episode 5, so I don't know what's in the great future.

Next week, in Part 2: Erica Durance reveals what's new and improved with Clark Kent, teases the "heartache" that comes with Lana's return, and raves about the "sexy" Allison Mack.